Al’s after-party, part 2

Here is the rest of owner Al Davis’ side session with reporters, after his elbow-dropping news conference Tuesday. He weighed in on:

^ Tuesday being a great day: “Oh, I couldn’t wait to get here. I think it’s a beautiful day. I’m happy for Hue Jackson. He’s got a big job. … The big thing, seriously, the gratifying thing, is all the calls from players, and the tweets — they call ’em tweets, I guess — all those things. Great, great, great, great. Every one of ’em. And then Michael Huff told Eddie Anderson, he said, I want to be here. You know, all that. I can’t speak for Michael Huff. I’m just saying all the nonsense that went on for a while, about they’re unhappy … Listen, their mentality is like all you people, if you’re dissatisfied then you change, like all of us.”

^ Getting personnel that fits his style or Hue’s: “Well, Hue Jackson likes the style that I like, and I like a lot of the style that he likes.” (So it’s the same thing?) “I can’t answer you that. I mean, we may have a disagreement on a player or two, but we’ll see. So far, you know, he’s used almost anyone just the way you’d like. A couple of ’em didn’t go until the end of the year, we start using Jacoby late in the year. He’s something.”

^ Bruce Campbell: “Yeah, he’ll play. He’ll play this year.” (Upset he didn’t play as a rookie?) “Was I upset? Not upset at anyone in particular, just upset, yes. I wish he’d have gotten a chance. But not upset at anyone in particular, no, because I could have resolved that by just telling him, ‘play him,’ and he’d have gotten to play. But Hue is on top of it. He’s gonna play. And he’s the only one who didn’t play this year, of the draft.”

^ Success of the last two drafts: “I think we’ve been very successful the last four. I think we’re always pretty good. The thing that hurt, is the question someone asked, JaMarcus hurt a great deal. But the ones they wanted to take instead of JaMarcus, Brady Quinn, hasn’t played yet. There was some talk of Calvin Johnson. But you can take a look at Calvin up at Detroit. How many games did they win this year, Detroit, do you know? Six? Yeah. But up until now, Calvin hadn’t done anything for them. He had been eulogized, but he hadn’t made a lot of indelible impression on the won and lost. Listen, someone asked the question, it’s there. The JaMarcus thing hurt.”

^ Rookie salary cap: “Obviously, that has to be negotiated. What it will be, a 30-percent reduction, 15-percent, it determines who we take care of. We have to take care of retired players. We have to. We have to do a better job for them, so they can pay for a funeral when God forbid someone dies, pay for medical, we have to take care of ’em.”

(Do enough people share that view?) “Listen, I’m told we’re one of two teams — I don’t know, maybe I’ll check the others. But one of two teams that pays all the medical of the people who work for us. That’s one of the virtues, I’ve always felt, has to go to the employee, that they can’t worry about their medical. And so we paid it. But they’re on me about it upstairs, because boy, that’s a big number. I don’t know if you know it, but a player, married, with any kind of children, minimum of 30,000 a year, for their medical. And we’ve always paid it. They get on me, because all the clubs say, you know, the Raiders are doing it. But that’s one of the virtues of being a Raider. We pay their medical.”

^ Super Bowl pick: “Probably the Jets. Pittsburgh … wait a minute. It’s tough. Tough. … I wanted to make the point to you, his last year here in Oakland, Charles Woodson played in a defense we called Wolverine. … Do you remember what position he played in Wolverine?” (Kind of a middle safety-linebacker thing) “You remember who knocked the ball out of Brady’s hands?”

(Now they’re saying the Tuck Rule is a bad rule) “Oh, well, we knew that’s coming. We just didn’t know when it was coming. They took the game from us, let’s be honest about that. But I wanted to say, we were playing Charles Woodson as a safety late in his career with the Raiders, and we were blitzing him a lot. He’s got the strongest hands. He knocks those balls out of your hands when he tackles you. He really does. I remember he got Hines Ward in Pittsburgh, when we played Pittsburgh, I think it was the night Gannon kept throwing. … That’s what he can do. He likes that better than playing corner. Corner, he don’t like it if he sees speed out there, he don’t like it. He’s a good player. Seems our corners are everywhere. Even that little Chris Carr starts for Baltimore. Yep.”

^ Aaron Rodgers: (Regret not drafting him?) “Sure I would regret not drafting him. Fact, I made two calls to two people. Yeah, he’s a good player.” (You made two calls?) “Who didn’t see him as being … If I see a player on television look great, and I go back in the files upstairs and we got a report on the guy that’s ‘ehh, he’s 50 percent,’ I might call him and say, what were you doing?”